James McManus, Columnist

A Holiday Gift Guide for Poker Fans

While the poker player on your list might not be pushy enough to mention it, the gift she or he almost certainly covets most is the $10,000 buy-in to the World Series of Poker Main Event.

December 2, 2014 at 4:40 PM UTC

By James McManus

James McManus is the author of "Positively Fifth Street" and "Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker." He has written about the game for the New York Times, Harper's, the New Yorker, Foreign Policy, Esquire and Grantland. He teaches writing and literature at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Up the ante, Rudolph.
Photographer: J.Sciulli/WireImage for Jane Magazine

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No one really gives ties anymore, do they? Plus everyone on your holiday list already has HBO, Netflix and Hulu. What about the latest Android-powered intelligent telephone? Yawn.

While the poker player on your list might not be pushy enough to mention it, the gift she or he almost certainly covets most is the $10,000 buy-in to the World Series of Poker Main Event next July, with maybe a little something extra thrown in for airfare and expenses at the Rio casino in Las Vegas. They're unlikely to be disappointed, either, to receive the buy-in to another World Series bracelet event, which run as low as $1,000. These events require only three-day commitments, instead of the 10 you have to carve out of your summer to play the Main Event, even though you might only survive a few hours -- or minutes.